A program-defining campaign for Stephen F. Austin Athletics, down the tubes in the worst kind of way. 

It all started as a normal night turned historic. 

It was March 11th; I was sitting up at Lanana Creek in Nacogdoches on a quiet spring break evening watching the Dallas Mavericks play Denver and enjoying an evening drink. Boban was randomly popping off to the tune of 31-17-1, MVP candidate Luka Doncic was on a bit of a down night by his standards, dropping only 28 points, and the 2019 Dallas Mavericks were having a fun evening at home, playing a close back-and-forth with Nikola Jokic and company which ended in the Mavs slipping away down the stretch and ultimately closing the game with a 113-97 win over the Nuggets.  

By all standards, a fun game to be out of the house for; However, before the final whistle had blown, things had taken a wild turn. 

I looked down at my phone which had just buzzed and saw a notification from Twitter I had never imagined I would see in my life: 

Meanwhile up in Oklahoma City, the Thunder were about to tip off against Utah. Minutes before the game was set to begin, timeout footage showed Jazz medical staff running out onto the court to tell officials that Rudy Gobert had tested positive for the virus, and for the game to be suspended.  

It wasn’t but moments following that the season suspension announcement came.  

The Schefter tweet rolled through at some point during the second quarter of the Mavs-Nuggets game I actually cared about, which was followed probably not even 60 seconds after I got the notification by cameras at the Mavs game panning over to Mark Cuban, sitting in his usual spot down on the court, looking at his phone as if he had just been smacked. The league cancellation came moments after the Jazz game was canceled, and I sat and watched in real time as the news circulated across the league and nation. 

The Mavs finished their game with a win, and it ultimately wound up being the last game the league would play this season- at least up to this point.  

In a world filled with misinformation, Schefter tweets are rock solid; This was the moment I had realized that this COVID outbreak was going to leave its mark on the history books, and since that night, it has done that and then some.  

And then followed the NCAA… 

Of course with the NBA  being the first domino to fall, it was certainly to be only a matter of time before the rest of spring sports followed, which much to the horror of local basketball fans, meant that a historic Stephen F. Austin basketball season had just ended right in the middle of their conference tournament, the following weekend after the NBA had made their announcement to suspend. 

Most everyone around these parts ought to be familiar with the local college basketball narrative by now; The Lumberjacks had run off with the Southland Conference (again), and (again) were poised to make a run in the NCAA tournament. Only this season there was something else in the air surrounding arguably the best squad this school has ever had- 

To start with the obvious- Stephen F. Austin- a program housed in one of the smallest conferences in Division I, located in a town of 30,000 people and near nothing else, started their season off with one of the greatest statistical upsets in the history of the game, going to Duke and stunning the most storied program in college hoops and one of the greatest coaches to ever grace the hardwood. Forward Nathan Bain, the Lumberjack responsible for the winning drive, earned an opportunity to share his story with the world and bring his hurricane ravaged home in the Bahamas some much needed publicity: 

The night that Duke lost to the Jacks, I was sitting in the exact same place I was that night the NBA went down. I won’t tell you which one I am in this video of us celebrating, except to tell you I was the first one out of his seat jumping around like a man on fire. What an amazing moment.  

They followed up that act with an incredible-though-now-kind-of-expected 23-2 run up to the point that their season was shut down, days before possibly earning a bid into the tournament and possibly making a run that would have possibly put their program on the map for years to come.  

Possibly.  

Beyond what was happening on the court for the Lumberjacks, things had lined up just perfectly for them heading into March. Not only had they been riding the publicity wave that the win over Duke had brought the program, but with SFA just a win short from cracking the AP Top 25 for the first time in program history- despite having a horrendous mark on their resume from having dropped one game to A&M Corpus Christi in February- experts who know more than I do still believed in this team making a run in a field of opponents which seemingly had no clear top team, and one in which upsets had become a nightly occurrence: the field was wide open this year, and was tailor-made for a team like the Jacks to get in and make a serious run.  

You know you’ve got a weird season on your hands when Baylor and Dayton are jockeying for one seeds 

The stars had aligned just perfectly; and at the perfectly wrong time, the season was gone. No tournament, no top 25, no new publicity, no happy narrative as seniors across the nation get ready to put a bow on college careers days before the most important games of some of these young men and women’s careers- nothing. Just gone. As a stalwart fan of the sport, I could think of no worse way for it to all end.  

Why it matters, so, so much: 

As much as I could keep harping about losing men’s basketball this season, SFA athletics as a whole was really having an amazing semester: The women’s program was also in a tight race for the conference, and playing incredibly; SFA’s bowling team was poised to defend another national title; Coach Carthel and the football program had just signed another top 5 recruiting class in FCS; Ladyjack softball had just tee’d off to their best start in program history, and even down the road a county over, Angelina College’s men’s basketball had earned their first bid to the JUCO National Tournament since 1998– though even they lost out on their chance at postseason glory and all that comes with it.  

While many would take the stance that these things have little sway over our actual lives, I’m here to stand against that notion and offer an opposing argument; that while out here in rural East Texas sports may be far from the one thing that keeps us all in jobs and food on our table, the publicity that follows these amazing moments in the history of SFA and Angelina athletics brings the city to us in ways that all other industries for centuries now have largely failed. When the Lumberjacks wallop a nationally-ranked West Virginia and come one play short of a Sweet 16 run; When Bowling wins a NATIONAL title- not just local or conference- When our Volleyball program is top-50 ranked in the nation- When Angelina College goes on a tear which sees them ranked and in the postseason- these things bring national publicity,  awareness, and new money to a region that has been aching for growth for so long, and should matter in every conceivable way to each and every one of us. When was the last time you recall our corner of Texas being mentioned on national platforms like ESPN, Fox Sports, or even CNN with Anderson Cooper?  

Of course, life as we consider to be ‘normal’ will eventually return in some form or fashion. We will look back at this period in our lives and hope that it is all but a memory not to be repeated. However, as a man who temporarily lost something which he considers to be as much a part of spring as the sun and rain, ironically enough I am sure to remember this season more so than any other in which sports actually occurred, and so too do I hope our community remembers as well.